On today's episode of Gathering the Kings. It's like we know that this culture thing is real. We know that how I interact with my people how I communicate or how I solve problems or what benefits that we have. All this matters, but it doesn't feel necessarily like there's a gold standard What would you say to that person listening right now that's like, I'm with you. Pam, I'm on the train, but what do I do? What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast.
I'm your host, and I'm back today with another queen on the King stage, Pam Nimic. How are we doing, Pam? Doing great. Hi, Chaz. Thanks for inviting me to be on the podcast. Absolutely. You know, I I'm encouraged because our first few minutes here before we hit the recording button and not only had you, you know, of course, checked us out and let's do a couple shows, which I appreciate, but you made reference to being a queen on the king's stage. And I just I'm honored by Chaz, really.
We've had many queens but we got a little chance to go back and forth on the single mom, like mindedness between my story and yours. And so I'm I'm anxious to be able to share that with the listeners and just really the tenacity that many women or queens bring to business. And I think Chaz, say, your story is gonna be definitely in line with that. So tell us, Pam, what kind of business do you have?
Well, I currently am a consultant, and I help companies build leadership and communication systems because I think that is a huge part of developing great company cultures. You know, I'm on the mindset that you can solve almost any problem with great communication. Specifically in in a company's culture. Right? A lot of times, we avoid those tough conversations and those are exactly the conversations we need to be having.
Yeah. Yeah. Not only clear communication, but, communication that moves the needle. There the culture is one of those words. I think that for the last probably five or 10 years has been just growing in excitement and energy and a little bit of a buzzword, a little bit of a cliche word almost. Yeah. What is culture to you? You know, I worked for a large organization for over 20 years, and I was fortunate For many of those years, we were in a culture that I felt like was very supportive.
And I don't mean just from a you know, the people, a lot of times, people want that care and that concern, and that was there too. Yeah. But when I learned about cultures, It's not just about the perks and the parties and Yeah. Pay and the benefits. It's about a lot more than that. And what I've learned is that you have to have kind of the the processes and the systems in place to hold people a accountable to the kind of company you wanna build.
And I'm seeing that right now with the client that I'm working with, you know, when you start to grow beyond that small organization you once Chaz. You start to see the the strains of the organization. You start to see that there are some challenges that are there now that were not there before. Yeah. You can't just gather every body in a in a room real quick and tell them what's going on. You have to learn how to really build that platform.
And those systems in order to communicate that information in a way that people can really absorb and are appreciating, but So that's why I I don't look at culture like I used to. You know, 20 years ago, had you asked me that question? I would have talked to you about events. I would have talked to you about the parties, the times that you need to gather people up and go how fun. And I still believe in all of Chaz, and that is part of it.
Sure. Yeah. But as I went from a team of 2, to a team of 200 that I was personally supervising Yeah. To a company that I was, you know, accountable to connect to all the people. I went from 25,000 to 50000 by the time I laughed. Wow. I learned really quick. I'm not gonna be able to do this. Just on Wolfe alone.
Yeah. I I have got to build a platform and a system to communicate to both and actually Wolfe other leaders accountable to communicating to their teams, cascading information, giving context, collaborating, asking for people's input and an opinion. You know? Yeah. And so that that's probably the biggest lesson I've learned in the last 20 years. Is that you you really have to look at culture differently? Don't look at it like benefits, HR, perks, parties, It's just not it's not just that.
It's everyday respect, everyday communication, collaboration, And there are systems you can build to actually make sure that happens. Yeah. Some leaders are better than others at it. Absolutely. Well, naturally speaking systematically and then also just in a galvanizing way of just actually bringing people together.
What I heard you say is that you've created a machine for lack of better terms, an actual, like, formula to take the feel good thing about culture and parties and benefits and all the things that we think about now actually to put them into an equation along with communication, respect, authenticity. Like, some of these real, like, human things, like, the other half of why people come to work for you or for other people listening. It's not just for the perks of the parties or the money.
We know that There is a desire in collaboration and doing something meaningful and being respected by my coworkers and my my leadership and all of these things that go into culture as Wolfe. And you're saying it's not this or that is actually all of it, but in a formula. And so you've formulated a formula to create a result, is this is this something that any business can use? Is this something only big companies can use? Give us a little bit more.
No. Because I I think that everybody, regardless of the size of your company. Now granted, if you have one person, then maybe you don't need this right now. But as you start to to grow, I don't think it's ever too early to begin looking at your processes and your systems within your company as it relates to communication. And how you lead. And, again, it's about as you grow, you're gonna have to hire more and more leaders to lead your company. That's right.
Those leaders may or may not be the best about communication. Right. Some are great at it, and some are not that great. They might be really good at finance, but they may not be as strong in communication. So The entrepreneur themselves may not be that good. Exactly. So what I've learned is that you kinda have to hold yourself accountable to communicate by creating a formula of schedule, a plan for culture.
Just like if you were gonna plan your growth for your business, a lot of people will plan that out to the to the nth degree. But when you talk about how are you gonna plan to develop your culture along the way. People forget about that part. Are you gonna plan communication through that change. How are you gonna manage change as you grow? And that's where communication and then the right type of leadership comes into play.
Yeah. Which we can get into, obviously, styles of communication or even process, hiring those right people. There's a lot of semantics that come into that, but I wanna before we go into anything further in the nitty gritty, I wanna I wanna know a little bit more about you, Pam. I wanna know Chaz is the heartbeat? Why are you doing this? What's the bigger picture? The burning desire Chaz many like to say. What what's what's the why for you?
Well, You know, I I think it kinda goes back to where I started. So when I first started in my career, I started as a PR director. And I was working for a children's haul. And I've been everywhere from working for a children's haul. I was a teacher for a while. I taught marketing and business.
I was a stay at home mom for 5 years, and then I started working for that large organization, and my career trajectory over the past 20 years went from a marketing manager to a head of HR and communications for the brand. Wolfe, during that time in 2009, I had just been promoted to a higher level direct in the company, and we had relocated our headquarters. And during that time, during that relocation, I also learned that I was gonna be a single mom.
So it was kind of like the subtly single low hit. Yeah. And I was like, okay. Well, I didn't see that coming. And I had 2 children, have 2 children, and at the time, and I was in the midst of this big move and relocating the family, relocating the company. I was in charge of communications for that move. So there's a Wolfe lot going on. So what was great about that time was I had a boss who was the CEO. I was just able to go to him and say, hey. I need to let you know.
I've got some things going on. Right? And I knew I trusted him, and I knew that he wouldn't He wouldn't say, oh, well, I'm gonna set Pam over here to the side, or I'm Sure. Kinda start marginalizing what she does because she's too busy to kinda do this. He supported me in a way that felt respectful. Yep. And I ended up being single for another 12 years.
And so I just focused on work and my kids and ended up, like I said, I was a director at that moment when that happened, but I ended up as a senior VP. And I think that taught me the support of your company and the support of the people that are in that company. When people go through a tough time is is everything, Yeah. To individuals, and it changed the way I led as well. I had always been, obviously, I care about people just because I care about people.
Yeah. It it changed my perspective so much because I had personally experienced a situation in my life that could have derailed my career. Yeah. Could have put me in a position where financially I could have been in a situation where I would I would be concerned, but as it was, I was able to just continue on and do well in the company and raise 2 great kids. Who both graduated from Texas A and M and doing great in their lives. And, you know, it was tough.
It was difficult, but they're doing good. And I think that's where that balance comes in for our leaders to understand that, you know, culture is about a lot of things. But when you have that moment, when you can do good for a person and understand their circumstances is everything to that individual. It doesn't make them lazy. It makes them very loyal.
Yeah. Yeah. It produces something in them that they're not gonna get probably from anywhere else, right, because we're we're community based creatures. We're meant to live in community. We're meant to do things with other people, whether that be work and or go through the hard times. And so I think actually what you've given through your story and then through the kind of, like, the overview of your formula, you've given that in a very practical way, which is we're humans.
And whether we're working in a company or whether we're going through stuff in life, We need people around us that are gonna push us, challenge us, support us, encourage us, pick us up when we fall, tell us to you know, hey. It's no big deal. Keep moving or, like, whatever the the the moments require, that's really the culture, but you're just saying that there's a formula to that. It doesn't have to be just on the whim. Which I feel like that's that's where a lot of entrepreneurs live.
It's like we know that this culture thing is real. We know that how I interact with my people how I communicate or how I solve problems or what benefits that we have. All this matters, but it doesn't feel necessarily like there's, like, a a gold standard. What would you say to that person listening right now that's like, I'm I'm with you. Pam, I'm on the train. But what do I do? Yeah. So, you know, there's there's I actually came up with a formula. So it's called the connected leader.
And it's it's about there's 7 stuff and I've actually added another one. So I called the 7+1 now because There you go. What I what I've learned is that You have to create the vision for your culture just like you create the vision for your company. Now some people would say, well, that's all the same thing. And I'm like, it's it's not, though. Because you really have to be intentional about the kind of culture that you build. So do you know the vision for the culture that you want?
And then you've gotta get very committed to it. And you have to coach it. And so you if you know the vision, then you can coach the vision. That's right. I'll give you an example. So let's talk about coaching. So you've hired new people. They're coming into your company. How are you coaching your culture? Do people know what that looks like? Do they know how to integrate into it? And that sort of thing.
So everything from how you orient, how you coach, how you lead, how you coach your leaders on being better at Chaz. And then moving into, you know, when you think about your hired to retire process, how are you integrating the company, message, culture, vision, values, and to everything you do from a recruitment standpoint, All the way to your orientation, your training, and your development, all the way to retirement. How do you retire people from your organization?
Because those people become customers or clients. And then thinking about how are you taking all of these these things that you develop on the inside, the rewards, the recognition, all of these pieces How are you taking all of that and creating a culture that is so powerful that people wanna promote and protect it on the outside of your organization?
And this is what I had a unique perspective and opportunity when I worked for Water Burger, and that was I sat as HR and communications, but I also ran social media, public relations, customer care Wow. Even digital for a time. And what was great about that is a lot of people think that communications, social media, PR, that sort of thing should be in marketing. And they looked at it as a marketing function.
But what was unique about the the leader that I had at the time was he understood that it's a little different. Communications is a conversation you're having with customers. It's a conversation you're having with employees. It's not just one way. Yeah. Right. And Having the ability to build the internal culture of an organization and create something really special What happens is when your people start to feel cared for, you you you'll see that they start to protect and promote your brand.
Right. Then you if you have the platforms established as a system within your organization, you can promote those Things that are happening internally. Right. When you do that, the stories that start to come out. From a PR perspective, from a social media perspective, you can take that. You push that back out into the or into the organization.
And it becomes a cycle where people are seeing the good that you're doing inside the company, the people at the customers are seeing it, the employees are seeing it, and then they wanna emulate it. And you create this momentum that is pretty powerful and starts to create a brand. Chaz it goes beyond the walls of that company. And that's where I believe that inside out approach Chaz much more impactful than just marketing a message to a customer.
And when you start getting your employees, promoting and protecting your brand. You know, you started to Right. Started something pretty special. Yeah. Absolutely. And I would I would agree with you in an extension even with your clients, your clients can become part of the same momentum force.
And it's interesting that you described this almost like super authentic and organic internal approach, like what you're saying, and then turning that into external because that's actually what we've done. It's not with the employees, although my my team is part of this, but this has been our approach with gathering the Kings as a mastermind group.
We don't have a sales process, which is crazy because I have 20 years of sales experience and leadership and training and coaching and I built courses and I built a sales team for Grant Cardone and, like, sales is in my blood, but we do not currently have a sales process nor do we generate, quote, unquote, leads And it's very interesting because we have a very thriving mastermind group with 7 to 9 figure business owners, and I've just organically come
across people Whether it be the show, whether it be events that I'm at, whether it be friends of friends or referrals, whatever it is. And we've done this for a period of time now. This was the point to do it for a period of time about a year. Where I wanted to lay a thick, authentic, just foundation that people knew that it was real and that they were just gonna be in a place that was forever gonna change their business, life, family, marriage, even the whole deal.
And so now that we have that, now we're looking at going, okay. How do we go external with this? What promotional or marketing do we actually step into? Which is gonna obviously create a sales process I know how to build that, like, the back of my hand, but it was at first. It was like, no. I wanna go internal. I want this to be real because there's so many other things that you can get swindled into.
And I'm not saying that the other programs are are not good, but there are a lot of externally marketing sales focus people where they'll just take your money and then you get in and you're like, or in the in your case, you go work for a company. It seems good. And then when we get on the inside, you're like, oh, this isn't This isn't what it seemed from the marketing that I saw Yeah. Or the interviewing that I saw or whatever.
So I think that the the principle here that I want the the listener to take away from our conversation is just that when you build intentionally and internally and authentically Yeah. That is gonna create this momentum that Pam's talking about because It's been real for us. And and I can talk about the same thing from employees as well. I'm sure you can in many of your clients that you've worked with, but when you have momentum, internally, it is super hard to to turn that off or shut it down.
Yeah. That's so well said because the thing about it is that Once you've created that excitement on the inside of your organization, what I saw Right. Was it and he would let me stop here real quick. Not every culture is perfect for everyone. Right? Right. So companies just they don't fit. You don't fit into it. Maybe you just don't like it for whatever reason. That's okay. I think that businesses need to be okay with being who they are. Right? Own. Absolutely. You know, own who you are.
It backs the part of the authenticity clarify who you are. Right? So you so you and everybody else knows. Yeah. You know, you gotta know who you are before you can become it. You know? That's right. Like anything in life. And so knowing who you are and not just following trends, because I think when you start to follow trends, it gets dangerous because now you're just not being authentic. Right? Right. Who knew who we were and we lived it every single day. And I used to tell people that I hired.
I said, I know that every company is gonna tell you they're a team. Right? We have teamwork here. Okay. But I'm telling you it's a team here. Right? So so check your ego at the door. Because we're all gonna get in a room, and we're gonna all help one another. We're gonna talk. We're gonna collaborate. We're gonna give our perspectives and opinions and We're gonna come up with something awesome. And what I saw when you do that, people start to feel much more ownership over your brand.
It becomes their brand. They're not talking about that it's your brand or that they're working for you. It's us. It's we. It's exciting because they become part of it. They wanna wear that logo on their shirt. They wanna wear that merchandise. They wanna be they're proud of it. And when you can create that kind of excitement by creating an ecosystem within the entire company and everything you do, you are pointing back to who you are.
You know, what you said you wanted to be, what you said that culture was about. And so every time when you start putting that out there, people expect you to live up to it. And some days you will fail. And that's okay. It's aspirational. Right? We're not gonna be perfect every single day. But if you say you wanna create a culture of respect Right. Then what does respect look like as it relates to all of the systems within your organization? Are you really demonstrating that in the collaboration?
I mean, that's one of the pillars that I teach. How do you collaborate in your company? Yeah. Yeah. You just make the decision and cascade the information and say live with it, or just actually bring all the people in the room Chaz are going to be impacted by that decision and ask your opinion. Right? That's a respect thing that starts to spelled loyalty within your organization and pride in the decisions that your organization makes.
If you don't collaborate, properly, and you don't have a system for that. Well, guess what? People are gonna work around it because people wanna move fast. They don't wanna talk to all the other people. They just wanna make a decision and go. Yep. What happens is you don't make the best decision. Not only that, people are feeling disrespected along the way. And then Yeah. People wanna be developed. How are you developing people?
How are you talking to them about where they wanna be in their in their next step of their career? Do they feel like you have their bat? Do you promote them to other leaders? Do you talk about what they've done, or do you take all the credit? You know, it's it's all of those those pieces Chaz may seem small at times, but they matter to that individual that you are leading in the organization.
And by putting together kind of a cadence for meeting, making sure that you're meeting with them on a regular basis, are you meeting with them Monthly, weekly, quarterly, annually. What are you trying to make sure that connection stays there and that it doesn't get pushed off your calendar because I'm sorry. The boss called, and I need to go, you know, to him Right. Versus worry about the people I'm actually leading.
Yeah. It's just that accountability create the systems that you need to hold yourself accountable to all of the things that people from us as leaders in an organization, whether you're leading a team or whether you're leading an entire organization, If you're leading an organization even better because you have the control to build the systems you need within the, eight areas that I teach, which is on my website, by the way.
They can go and look at those areas, but it's important to make sure that you have a a plan and you're being intentional about the kind of culture you said you wanted. Right. And then holding everyone, including yourself accountable to living it out. Yeah. Absolutely. There's a lot of a lot of power in which you're giving a lot of principle. You mentioned a few minutes ago that collaboration for lack of better terms creates opportunities for good decisions to be made. And I agree with that.
There's probably a few other things that go in that equation. Hey, Kings and Queens. Chaz Wolfe. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team into this podcast into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again, all of the things. On social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and Spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So Let's do this.
Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. And I wanna know of a good decision that you've made as building your business or in your 20 year or plus history with corporate America and building cultures in that arena. What was just a good decision? When you look back, you're like, I'd do that again and again and Chaz the listeners can implement into their businesses. Oh, boy. Well, there's been some personal good decisions I've made that have changed the trajectory of my career.
And then there's been some decisions that we've made as an organization that I think were smart. And that is picking that rule book that leaders tend to follow. And in in some cases, pitching it out the the window. Right. I think that great leaders don't put themselves in a box and follow the norm. K. All the other organizations are doing. Right? So Got it. A lot of times, people go, well, this is the structure of a company. This is the the way a company structured.
Therefore, that's how my company needs to be structured. Right. Well, in my experience, that hasn't always been the way we worked. So most people would put social media, for example, into a marketing department and say, you run social media. Might put public relations in marketing. And they would never combine HR communications social media of public relations, community relations, and customer care. They wouldn't think about doing that. Why would you put that in HR?
Yeah. In our case, we threw the Wolfe book book out and said, why not? Yeah. Because what communications does were come is they're promoting the brand to employees? Right. Well, HR promotes the brand to potential employees, and communications also promotes the brand to customers. But We promote it through a conversation. And through connection, not just a marketing message.
Yeah. And that combination of HR communications PR, branding, social media, all in one department, was extremely powerful, and it helped bring all of the elements of what may culture special together. And then in that collaboration, we could enhance it all. To promote the brand. And we used that opportunity to do some really cool things, not just for employees, but also for customers. Wolfe marketing was doing amazing work from a marketing perspective.
Sure. Of which, cross functionally collaborating the whole time, to make sure that we were all demonstrating the kind of company and culture values that we wanted to stand for. And so I think the decision to not always follow the norm has been one that will rate much more reward than just always doing what everybody else tells you to do. Yeah. I love Chaz. And you gave a great depiction of what that looks like inside of an organization.
A little bit of a disruptor is what you're saying, and it's okay to disrupt. I think that there's probably a difference between trying to recreate the wheel every time and being a disruptor with certain levers. And so I wanna as a person who really likes to disrupt things and think very uniquely I've had to learn that the number one that what Pam just shared with you is a huge value. Like, that is a uniqueness as an entrepreneur when you think a little bit different. That's okay.
Like, lean into Chaz. But lean into it on things like this that, like, really lever an entire organization and it doesn't have to be every little thing that you have to reinvent. And so I think that there's major power and also major disruption that can happen. So I think you've given us a really, really clear path on how to be able to utilize that, inventive uniqueness that some of us, a lot of us have. What about a bad decision?
Something that you did that didn't work out, and we can learn from. You know, I think early on in my career, I was terrible about asking for help. I I just always felt like I didn't want to appear vulnerable, number 1. We I didn't wanna appear like I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. And I would take on more than I could handle And then what would happen is I would not either produce something that was really that strong.
Or I would be laying on my deadlines because I had taken on too much because I wasn't asking for help. Yep. The great the great thing that happened was we were doing these 360 reviews, which are painful, honestly, but they're so helpful. You have to pick 7 people who know you well, all different levels in the organization, and they provide in-depth feedback about you. You know, basically a stop start and continue. What do you need to stop doing? Start doing. What do you need to continue doing?
Well, Chaz you can imagine, they they say you amazing things on the, you know, what you should continue to do. Sure. But all you focus on is what should stop doing. Right? That's the things that you you worry about. Yep. And what they the feedback was is is she's great, but I can't depend on her to meet this deadline. And this was when I was probably thirty two years old, so really early in my my journey.
And which was a great gift because it made me realize that I am saying yes to things Chaz I'm not That's not my area of expertise. Right. And I need to reach out and get help, and I need to not take on more than I can actually deliver because it's great to say yes to everything at the time. But if you can't deliver it in a way that's what's expected, they really can't do so. Yeah. Exactly. And so that was my big kind of moment.
Like, hey, Pam, you need to stop saying yes to every you need to really understand where your limitations are and reach out when you need help. And and that that's another reason I'm a big fan of collaboration. I've seen many, many times where I thought I had the answer. I thought I knew this was what we should do. Yep. You ask anybody. They would they were believing me too because I can be very convincing that that's the right thing to do.
Yeah. So what I saw is as we built us the process that ensured there was collaboration across the organization and the right people were in the room to give their opinion on this phasing idea. Yeah. I learned that I didn't know that the supply chain might be impacted by what I was about to do. I didn't understand that operations needed to know specific information in order to actually execute Chaz.
Or, oh, I didn't realize that training needed 5 weeks to prepare before, you know, this thing rolls out. And it's having those people in the room to tell me those things that made that than great idea and way better idea and better execution of it. Right. And everybody's excited the team's idea. And and what you all sent to let go of, I think, as a leader, and this comes with experiencing confidence over time is it doesn't have to be about you. It doesn't have to be your idea.
You have to let go and say, because I is my idea. I I might have started that idea, but, yeah, this team brought it to life. Yeah. And There's freedom in Chaz. There's freedom in it and there's power in it, and that is but culture building because it becomes about everyone. Not just about you as a leader and trying to take that credit, you know, and and that's I think that's dangerous to a team in an organization. You've gotta willing to to let others shine. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.
The root of this, what I found, especially for a lot of entrepreneurs, is control or ego. And a lot of leaders or entrepreneurs, someone listening right now, doesn't necessarily think of themselves as a person that demands control. Although, like, when you hear that and you know that you're a control person, like I am, like many people are, Chaz it's like, oh, yeah. Like, when I hear, like, yeah. No. I I demand order. I demand control of things. There's a certain standard.
There's a certain formula process. But most business owners, most leaders want freedom, really. And so there's this interesting play because you can't have both.
You can't be in control of everything or have every good idea be yours and everybody just doing what you say and have freedom because freedom comes from, like, what you're saying, collaboration and actually giving some of that away, even if it was the start of your idea, it was molded and crafted and and executed by by an entire team or organization and allowing not only them to have a piece of the credit, but in rightful sew, like, they they did some work.
And so why wouldn't you wanna do that and empower them? Which then is creating a lot of these things that you're talking about inside of a team, inside of an organization, which we call culture. It's like, I'm actually empowering this individual to keep doing what it is their superpower is, which makes them feel really, really good about their job here, which makes them then start promoting from the inside, which makes them start promoting to the outside.
All this stuff that we're talking about flows together, but it the seed of it is, as a leader, is their ego, is their control? Like, I'm all about order. I'm all about process and organization and being buttoned up and and being professional. I guess one of our core values. We're professionals. We know what we're doing. And if we don't, we ask for help because we need to make sure that it's but inside of that, there has to be collaboration and freedom for other people.
And but but really, I'm talking about the entrepreneur because that's who's listening right now. It's like, You feel like in order to get it done, you've gotta be the 1, and you don't. I promise you. In fact, the freedom is when you give it away like Pam's talking about. Would you add anything to this? Yeah. I just I would say that you gotta work on the business, not in it all the time. And I think that's pulling back a little bit and allowing others. To have their perspective and opinion heard.
I would say this. I'm working with a client right now that is having this moment of Hey. I'm I'm ready to move on and do something different in my business and let them operate. Wolfe I am building, you know, building the business, which is what CEOs should be doing. Right? How are you building the business for the future? Wolfe the others are operating it for the current day. Yeah. Right.
And one of the things you brought me in to help with is as you do that and as you build and you grow and you a choire new business into your organization. You have to be sure that people know what your standards are. Right. What are your standards in your organization? What's the operating model? How do I how do I work within your organization? Do I know the process? So I can plug in in a way that doesn't feel like I'm in the way, especially for new employees.
And And as you grow and you bring in new people into your organization, if you haven't clarified your standard, Your expectation, what is professionalism in the eyes of Chaz? Like, what do you think professionalism is? Everyone has a different take. Right? Yeah. And and that's what I mean about being intentional about your culture. If I say, I want a culture of respect. Wolfe, what does that mean to pan? I need to I need to articulate that So people are clear.
If I say I want a culture that is professional buttoned up, they know their stuff. What does that look like when they go and present to, as I say, client and a meeting? What does professional mean to you? Are you teaching it? Is the standard there, or are they building a message or a PowerPoint or a presentation where that you just sort of, like, wanting to you know, sink under the table. You know?
So it's it's those things that you have to know Chaz that's where that leadership and development pillar of the my program comes in. It's like, how are you leading and developing your culture? Do people know Chaz is expected of them, and do they know how to deliver it, and do they have the tools to do so? Yeah. Yeah. It can't just be the core values written on the wall. It can't. I always say that as, like, people put these things on a poster.
They, you know, raw raw at a meeting or they do it in an email sign off, you know, little signature at the end, and they think see, I care about culture. And I'm like, yeah, but how are you leading and developing that in every single person in your organization and not you as the CEO? But how are you teaching your leaders how to do that? And how are they teaching their leaders how to do that? And how is it cascading through the organization?
And then how are you recognizing and rewarding those people? Are you only rewarding and recognizing the people that are hitting the numbers? And you're ignoring the way the behaviors they use to hit those numbers. Yeah. Because that's not that's not good for the culture. You could hit all the numbers, but you might be a real jerk along the way. And you're losing people from your team. At least maybe not physically yet, but they're certainly disengaging.
And and so it's It's paying attention to that as a leader and not making excuses. For those behaviors that don't fit, Yeah. And and that's just what I said at the early early part is I think a lot of things can be solved with with very candid conversations. You know, critical conversations that you need to have with people and be honest with them and tell them where they're where they need to step up. Yeah. You know?
And I I just think that's that's another part of this whole leadership and communication model. Everything I'm everything I preach Chaz, yes, it's culture. That's the top bucket. Right? But but at the end of the day, there's there's 8 more days. That she could focus on. Right. If you build those, you Wolfe get your culture. Yeah. Bill build those systems. Make sure you're looking at all of the the eight elements.
And and if you do that, you'll have a culture that you could be really proud of because it's intentional. You know what you're doing. You know how it's being taught. You know how it's cascading in the organization. Correct. And it's a solid platform to continue to bill from. Love it. I love it. I wanna go to our speed round here, ask you some questions that hopefully you know some quick answers too, but we'll see. First, it's just pretty easy.
What's a book recommendation or a business resource that you'd recommend our listeners grab. I love the book. Traction. It's something I just read. My subreddit is, I think it's a great book. It's about the processes of a business and Yeah. And make an understanding how that impacts performance. And I think I think the combination of of those processes impact culture, which impact performance. And I think if you can wrap All of that together, you'll have a pretty successful business.
Yeah. Yeah. We're ending June here in a in, I guess, today. And a lot of those EOS conversations will be happening in the next few days. So we we understand that for sure. Okay. What about about a KPI that you're tracking inside your business right now? What's the top thing that you're focused on? Oh, boy. And we are gonna ask me Chaz. I think that the the thing because I'm in a I'm in a pretty much of a still the startup mode, being that I left my 20 year career back end end of 2022.
So my business will be in operating a year this August. So for me, My KPI is the number of people that I am reaching out to on a daily basis. To spread the message and to put myself out there as a consultant and a speaker and a coach for leaders who are looking to improve their communication inside their companies. Hey. You gotta fill the pipeline. Exactly. You gotta fill the pipeline.
You know, it's it's interesting, you know, especially having several businesses myself, but even as we started gathering the Kings and I already told you our approach was not necessarily quote, unquote, fill the pipeline. That is always, like, what's, like, burning in back here going, who's in the pipeline? Who's in the pipeline? And so I think that there's a lot of folks that maybe aren't naturally wired that way or who have sailed experience.
But for the listener right now, who maybe doesn't or You know, it's just in that mode of of building. It's okay to dial in for a season where really all businesses is always in this season, but you have someone else do it eventually. Is that you've gotta be able to fill the pipeline. So I love what you're doing to put yourself out there and and the right people will hear the message. Sometimes it's a course of time.
Sometimes it's a course of just increasing volume and action, which we both know. I wanna ask you a a question about family. You mentioned earlier a little bit of you know, time frame where you were a single mom. You got a couple of kids for you in in building a career that's been very successful in leadership and in this culture, a play, and then now building a consult a consulting agency, you still have kids.
And so I guess my question is, how have you obsessed about the kids about the family unit at the same time as doing all of these extremely successful things in your career. You know, I I'm glad you asked that question because I think this is such an important aspect of being a leader. I believe that people wanna be great high performers at work, but they really wanna be high performers at home just as much. Yeah. And I was that person.
And I think that as a leader, one of the things that I did, as I was, you know, moving up in the company, I set boundaries. I had nonnegotiables. For example, I would leave meetings in the middle of them. In order to make it to my daughter's basketball game, I Wolfe leave to go make it to my son's pole vault beats. I think it matters that when your children look up in the stands, you're there. And so I just refuse to miss Their activities and their events.
And so that I might not be the greatest about I'm gonna cook dinner every single night because by the time I commuted and got home, Right. The kids were starving. So I had to have my babysitter feed them until I got home, and then maybe we would eat again. The point was is that I had to negotiate those times where maybe there was an executive dinner Chaz I had been invited to attend, but my daughter had a basketball game. I'm with the line to the basketball game.
And Yeah. That gets me fired, so be it. Right? And I think as leaders, we have to say, that's my non negotiable. And, thankfully, when you're in a culture that's supportive of your family, it's not an issue. And and so I I was I think I was a high performer at work, but I was also a high performer at home. And I also dedicated my weekends to my children. And my evenings to my children, and that's what I that's what I did.
And I think, yeah, was that perfect mother Probably not, but I I certainly did my very best to show them that they were first, you know, in my life. And I I think that's all you can do as a leader. She just gotta keep showing up for your kids, and you have to make them a priority. And you do that through your actions, not your words. And so that's kind of how I did it. And I I mean, to this day, speaking of obsessed, I'm so obsessed with my kids.
I mean, we literally talk every single day Wolfe My son my daughter called me all the time. I now have a grandbaby. My daughter's married. She's 27, and she had the baby now, and you talk about obsessed. I'm totally obsessed with her. And, you know, it's just a great thing when you can have grown children. And you still have these great relationships with your grown kids. Yeah. Even though you've been through all kinds of things as they were growing up, those teenagers or So enjoyable.
And, you know, but you get through it, and you love them anyway. You love them through all of Chaz. And and they love you through all of it. And and Yeah. Whether they say it or not. Right? Whether they say it or not, and at the end of it, Chaz you're rewarded with amazing relationships when they're adults. And Yeah. See Chaz is Wolfe always be way more important than any title I held at a company. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I think that's so those are super great practicals.
I think that we all have to figure out what that looks like. Reach one of us, you know, for for entrepreneurs, Chaz you know now, it there's a a flow of life that it just there's not really this or that, and they don't turn it off.
And so figuring out ways to be able to go all in or have boundaries or obsessions here or there, make it, in my opinion, doable because it's not it We just, unfortunately, don't don't have a 9 to 5 situation as entrepreneurs, but that doesn't mean that we can't decide what we're looking for. I do have one thing I was gonna just say real quick What you just said? Yeah. This idea of of how do you raise cans and raise a business? You know, it's it's can be tough. Right?
There's challenges, but just like your intentional about the culture you're gonna create for your company. You're That's right. Creating a culture for your family. 100%. Is intentional about Chaz. And plan for that just like you would plan for your business. Right? I mean, I know that it takes maybe the, I don't know, the the fight out of it, but to me, it's it's the only way. You gotta plan the life you want. It's the only way you're gonna actually have it. Yeah. That's right. That's right.
So, anyway, that's my That's awesome. Pam, you're you're obviously a a a great mother and especially with having older kids and and them, you know, desiring to still I I should be friends with you really now. Yeah. Well, there's a big difference between, you know, being, like, this person being my mom and then now, this person being my friend. And Yes. That transition doesn't happen if if they don't feel like the years before, we're Yeah. We're very good.
So I got one last question here for you, Pam. I gotta know if you had a chance to reach back into the past, and whisper into the younger Pam's ear. What would you say? Trust her instincts. Okay. Tell her to trust her instincts. I've had a moment in my mind that was that instinctual decision that I may Chaz I not gone with my gut on that? It would have it would have changed the complete trajectory of my life. Yeah. And it was a very tough decision.
It was a personal decision that I had been my husband at the time had said to me, I was in an airport. I was walking through an airport. I was working for the company at this point, and I was traveling, and I got a phone call And he had said, hey. I don't want to relocate with your company. I don't wanna do that. Can we just not do that? And we'll buy that house out in the country, and you can stay home and raise the kids.
Now knowing that is something that I had always kind of desired by being there for the kids, Yeah. He was kinda putting that out there, but we had had some things that happened prior. And so I'd had to at that moment make a decision. Do I take this hear it. That I've been wanting and and do Chaz, or do I trust my instincts at this very moment in the middle of this air support and say, I'm sorry. I'm gonna take this job. I am gonna move because of these things.
I I need to have my own financial independence And so I'm gonna do that. Yeah. And I I hope that's I hope that you will come, but that's where I'm going. That's where the kids are going. And and that was the best decision I ever made because about 3 months later, I found out that I was gonna be suddenly single for other reasons. And Sure. Had I not made that decision? Yeah. I would've lost my job. I would've by bed that time had been replaced, and I would be stuck in a very small town.
Without a job and and so on. Different circumstances. It's it's just those moments that are very difficult. Yeah. The decision you're making, you know, is not gonna be popular. Right. But there's something in you, you know. For me, it's fake. Chaz there was something telling me, Pam, don't do that. Don't do that. I know it's hard. Keep forging ahead. Keep forging ahead. Best decision they ever made. You know? But sometimes those moments are you don't know.
You're making it and you're like, oh my gosh. This is oh, maybe I should just go with the flow. You know? Pam, that I mean, that's an incredible story. First off, and what a pivotal moment And I love I love the belief that you'd whisper to the younger you of. Trust your instincts. You've been incredible here today. How can the listener find you? Number 1, if they are running a business or if, you know, they're part of a big organization listening and they need to work on their culture.
How can they find you? Or if they're just entrepreneur and they wanna connect with you, how can they find you? The best way to to get in touch with me is go to my website pamnemic.com. I also have a lot of free resources on there that they can download, how to build these communication platforms. It talks about the model that IT It kind of gives you a little more context and background on what I do. So so pandemic.com, nemec, Perfect. And, yeah, so go there.
And then, of course, I'm on social media. Linkedin is, like, I'm always posting blogs and profession. So I'd love for people to follow me on LinkedIn and on on Instagram as Wolfe. Again, pandemic. So Perfect. We'll put all that in the show notes as well and it makes it super easy for them to connect with you.
And, again, thank you for being here that you've given a ton here today and, I'm thankful to know you and be able to collaborate with you or mastermind on this podcast about the culture and and your story. So thank you for sharing. Blessings to you, your children, your grandbaby, and, and your consulting firm and all the people that you're gonna touch here as you teach culture and the uniqueness of that all over the world. We appreciate you being here. Awesome. Well, thank you. Been awesome.
Thank you for listening to Gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own, carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from mall businesses in multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 789 figure business owners is that It's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1 1000 kings, specifically who are grateful, but not done. We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, and communities.
And here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you, and you know that you need people around you, sharp, qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com. You take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.